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The combination of mysteries, deaths and confessions was threatening to engulf James, and he didn't know what to say next. ‘Detective Jimmy, we worry no more for Banyak. He come home when he want. Now, you do your clues, and I do our dishes.’
‘Thanks.’
‘For what is thanks?’
‘For trusting me and making me feel better.’
‘Is nothing for Andrej. Now, shut mouth and open head. Where you go? I bring wine. We work.’

‘What is cock trap?’
James gawped. ‘You know… Their… fancy article. Thatched cottage. Crinkle-crankum?’
‘You not well, Jimmy? You talk bollock.’
‘I hate to think what you call it,’ he said. ‘A lady’s private area.’
‘Ah!’ Fecker nodded. ‘Is where Miss Lucy sits to read her book when I must not talk.’
‘What? No, her…’ James whispered an Anglo-Saxon obscenity.
Fecker leapt back in shock. ‘Why I want to see that?’

"Why'd they let you down here with fire?"
"Because they're stupid," he said. "They believe too strong in one thing. Their brainboxes is all facing one way. They don't think that there might be other things. I'm not like them. My mind don't go in a straight line. The steering wheel is loose."
"Who are you?"
"I'm The Kid. Who are you?"
The monster's voice turned cold and hard. "I'm Wormwood, the Green Man"

'I'm angry with meself.’
‘Da. That is why Andrej love you as brother and why I find nothing in you to forgive. You always do for me or Jimmy. Now you let us do for you, but don't do it with a face like slipped arse.’
‘It's slapped. Face like a slapped… ’
‘Be the Banyak who saved me from stabbing, who went into burning house to save Danylo’s stone and does the worst things so sisters can eat. You understand?’

It was a long way from the life he had expected when he left a Westerpool slum and came to London to find work. A different world. One to which he had adapted, as secretary to a lord and a businessman in his own right. What he didn't know was he was about to embark on a case that would bring him to the brink of death and face to face with the past he strove to forget.

Many updates incoming ...
#SorryNotSorry

His eyes fell on his friends. Fecker, splendid in his carriage livery, Lucy’s arm through his, gazing more at each other than the stage. The brilliant if unpredictable Jasper, an overcoat between his seat and Billy’s disguising their held hands. Harvey lowering himself into his place. James sat by Silas’ empty seat on the aisle, golden hair glistening, and his eyes fixed on Thomas.

New adventure with my boys!

I'mma bit obsessed with "Victorian" mysteries right now. 😅
Not sure if this qualifies as "Victorian" but ... close enough! 😉
Enjoyed the first one and the narrator is awesome! 😁

🥱 A quarter way into the book and, so far, we've bought a horse ... and fucked. 🤷‍♂️ Everything else is just blah, blah, blah re-hashing of what happened in book one. Yeah, I read book one ... that's why I'm now reading book two. 🙄 Lots of skimming. 😖 Honestly feels like the author is stalling until they think of an actual plot.

Lovin' this new-author-for-me's writing ...
fast-paced, dialogue-heavy, and
not a lot of introspective musing
which bogs down a story, imo. 👍👍

New series, new author ...
so far, I'm lovin' it!!! 👍😁👍

“I threw a lamp at Death.”
“I’m sure he’ll forgive you.”
“What does it say about my life that being friends with The Grim Reaper barely rates a four on the Everett Scale?”
“The Everett Scale?”
“It’s the scale I invented to rate the weirdness that is my life on a scale of one being oh goody I can see dead people, to ten and holy shit, that’s a naked demon crawling out of the floor of a bookshop.”